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Dessert

Soda and Cream of Tartar Biscuit

A quick biscuit made with flour, butter, baking soda, cream of tartar, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Soda and Cream of Tartar Biscuit

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the dough

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. In a large bowl, combine the sifted flour and cream of tartar.

  3. Work in the butter until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs.

  4. Dissolve the baking soda in the milk and add it to the flour mixture.

  5. Mix until just combined, then roll out the dough on a floured surface.

Shape and bake

  1. Cut out biscuits using a biscuit cutter and place them on a baking sheet.

  2. Bake in the preheated oven until golden brown.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Cream + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

All-purpose flour
Forms the main structure of the biscuits as its proteins set around the air and steam.
Cream of tartar
Acts with baking soda to produce carbon dioxide, giving the biscuits lift and a tender crumb.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acidic cream of tartar to release gas for rising and aids browning.
Butter
Coats flour particles when worked in, creating flaky layers and a tender texture.
Milk
Hydrates the flour to form the dough and adds moisture and richness.

The step that matters

Mix until just combined. Overmixing develops gluten in the flour, making the biscuits tough rather than tender. Stop once the dough just holds together, and handle it gently when rolling.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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